True freedom is moving as God moves

If your life is not moving towards a deep thirst and yearning for God or a deep sense of serving people, especially those most marginalised, then you are not travelling up that mountain towards the new Jerusalem.

“You are travelling on another road; a road more travelled…. We are travelling on a road less travelled, but we are going up together,” Archbishop Jason Gordon said during his talk ‘Let the King of Glory come in’ for the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) Conference August 24 at the CCR Centre, Clifton Hill, Point Fortin. The conference had as its theme Let The King Glory (Ps 24:8–10).

Archbishop Gordon said there is a freedom we have before God when we come to worship, and which we must have because it is God who gives us that freedom. “It is that freedom that the psalm is recounting.”

The reading, he commented, reminds that we have been called to “radical freedom” through Jesus Christ. “When you are in the presence of God, you dance as David dances. When God is with you, you move as God moves. You don’t go at the speed you want to go…you go at the speed and the way and the direction that God is calling you,” the Archbishop said.

True freedom, however, always has boundaries and responsibilities. “It is not free to mash up the place…wine down the place…that is not freedom, that’s license. True freedom is freedom to become true sons and daughters of God,” he said.

The new Jerusalem is an image of our Christian journey. Jerusalem, Archbishop Gordon said “is here” in our minds, hearts, conscience and actions. “…That is our destiny. That is where we are going. That is what God calls us to…” he said.

When you belong to a city, you take on certain characteristics—you ought to talk the language and act like citizens of that city. “You know you could be any where in the world and know a Trinidadian…you could see it…and that is how the citizens of the new Jerusalem are…you could spot them a mile off. You could hear them; you could see them; you could smell the sweet unction of holiness on them.”

Archbishop Gordon likened the journey to the new Jerusalem as someone returning home after a long time yearning for that special dish from home. “That is how this journey up to Jerusalem is…We’re longing for that special food that has been given to us and that special food is the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

The Archbishop added while we have the freedom of the worship of the CCR, we must have the depth and longing for God the way that the doe yearns for running waters, a lover longs for the beloved, a wife for a husband and husband for wife.

“This relationship of intimacy with God is what is being spoken about in this new Jerusalem,” he said.

Ultimately, Archbishop Gordon maintained, we all have been called for heaven and nothing less than that would be good enough. He warned to let go of the “worthless things” on earth that preoccupy our mind and heart because they are a distraction to the journey up the mountain to Jerusalem, to “where we are heading”.